After applying a neutral grey wash of thinned oil paint to my board and letting this thoroughly dry, using a Jackson’s No2 Black Hog Round, I drew out the main structure of the composition with its many components.

I was working from life, (well you can’t seriously paint any still life from a photo), glancing over at a small area of my studio worktop, and started off with a thin mix of raw umber and ultramarine.

Some of the main areas of darkest shadow were loosely blocked in with this same mix, which started to give me a three dimensional feel even in this early stage.

Further strengthening of these darkest shadows was now needed, continuing this same mix to the jars, tins and paint tubes.

A touch of colour was also introduced and I felt that the tonal balance was looking strong and positive. I was now at the stage to start blocking in the objects with my first layer of colour.

So far, I have added just pure turpentine to my mixes, I’ll start adding a touch of linseed oil during the next two stages.

I’m attempting to keep the whole painting impressionistic in style, so I’m not after crisp straight edges here.

I continued adding more colour, building up my layers of paint thinly by adding just a touch of linseed oil to my paints in this stage, remembering to keep to the ‘fat over lean’ rule that I’ve discussed on previous demonstrations.

A little more emphasis was needed on the tubes of paint and some of the other objects, many of these original dark edges will be left to show in the finished piece. An indication of the background shapes was added, this will be kept really simple so as not to compete with the main composition, which has a lot going on.

Always an enjoyable stage, pulling the whole thing together with both stronger tone and colour.

Further layers of thicker oil colour was added, and once again adding a small amount of linseed oil to my mixes. Some further definition to the brushes, small art box and other various objects, then I added a cream background which echoed some of the existing colour already used, helping to create a degree of coordination across the painting.

It does look a fairly large area of blank space, but that was my intention from the outset as the foreground is very busy.

In hindsight, I would have moved the whole image up a touch and left some blank space at the base!

Want to paint stunning buildings in oil? Follow Alan to paint Wenlock Priory, Lichfield Cathedral, A Vision of Segovia and The Alhambra, An Impression.